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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
6 years ago

Refresh Completing But Data Missing

Hi,   I'm running into a peculiar intermittent issue when refreshing an Excel spreadsheet in the Power BI Service. For context, I have an Excel Spreadsheet in a Sharepoint site that is set to refre...
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Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
6 years ago

Hi Anonymous,

So you mean your data was stored in excel which a connection to the external data source, right?
AFAIK, power bi refresh will check your data source records. So if your records not updated in your file, power bi refresh will be triggered normally and not update any records.

Regards,

Xiaoxin Sheng

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
6 years ago

Hi Anonymous 

 

So the data source is SFDC, I used the "Get Data" functionality to upload an Excel file that has Power Query queries within it that load the dataset into the sheet so that users can download copies (the file is set to read only for all but myself). I then set up a Scheduled Refresh for the Excel file so that the data in there is updated 3 times a day. The records that were being pulled from SFDC had definitely been updated, I can see a history of those records from the front end of Salesforce.

 

My concern is that something failed in the refresh causing the data in the sheet not to be updated, but no failure was recorded in the Refresh Histories.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable
    6 years ago

    Hi Anonymous,

    Power query data connection in excel file not auto-update, it is a local file that contains a data link to source data and not able to update itself. You need manually to open this file and do refresh operation to get the latest data or try to configure the data connection to 'Automatically refresh data at regular intervals' mode.

    Refresh an external data connection in Excel 

    For power bi refresh operations, it checks file contents and not trigger the internal data connection to get new records.

    Regards,

    Xiaoxin Sheng

    • Anonymous's avatar
      Anonymous
      Not applicable
      6 years ago

      Hi Anonymous ,

       

      Please see the bottom of this page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-excel-workbook-files

       

      "Schedule refresh - If your Excel workbook file connects to external data sources, or you imported from a local drive, you can setup scheduled refresh to make sure your dataset or report is always up-to-date. "

       

      And subsequently: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/refresh-data

       

      "If you created your datasets and reports based on a Power BI Desktop file, Excel workbook, or comma separated value (.csv) file on OneDrive or SharePoint Online, Power BI performs another type of refresh, known as OneDrive refresh."

       

      Using the Get Data functionality and then the "Upload your Excel file to Power BI" option, it is possible to create a spreadsheet that will update itself once it is connected to the Power BI Service.

       

      Regardless of the above, in my inital post, I commented that I had seen this functionality working prior to my issue and subsequently it has been working. My concern was that there was a period where a Scheduled Refresh and a OneDrive Refresh both said that they had "Completed" with no errors, when the data had not been updated.

       

      Tom

      • Anonymous's avatar
        Anonymous
        Not applicable
        6 years ago

        Hi Anonymous,

        So you mean you are work with an excel workbook that deploys on power bi service side with an external data connection to other data sources, right?
        If all refresh log and history works well but not record updated, I think it may cause by backend verification or transforms, perhaps you can submit an idea to ask power bi team trace these.

        submit a support ticket

        Regards,

        Xiaoxin Sheng